Free Broken Angel by Sigmund Brouwer Page B

adrenaline faded. She glumly consoled herself that if anyone had followed them, they would have already arrived at the base of the tree.
    “Wish I had something to shoot it with. Ever eaten deer before?”
    “Go to sleep.”
    “I know you don’t want me with you,” Theo said. “I’m all right with that.”
    “Sleep.”
    “No, really. If I were you, I would lie to me too. I’d tell me that you were going to help me Outside, but then find a time to run away from me. People don’t like me. I talk too much.”
    “Sleep.” Caitlyn wanted to deny his accusation, but it would have compounded her guilt to blatantly lie. About the need to leave him. And about his ability to irritate.
    “I understand,” Theo said. “It’s because I’m weird. A freak. It’s not only because I talk too much. I can’t help my weird thoughts either. Like with double numbers.”
    She couldn’t resist. And it was a better direction than the subject of abandoning him when it was necessary. “Double numbers?”
    “Like four and nine and sixteen. See, two times two is four. Three times three is nine. Double twos and double threes and double fours and so on. It helps me go to sleep at night, trying to imagine the highest double number I can. Like 123 times 123. That’s how far I got last night. 15,129. And sometimes I figure backwards. Start with a number and see what double number makes it.”
    “Square roots,” Caitlyn said.
    “This tree?”
    Despite herself, Caitlyn laughed. “No. It’s not called a double number. Three is the square root of nine.”
    “Other people think about this too?” Theo sounded excited.
    “Papa taught me.” He had spent hours and hours teaching her mathematics.
Papa.
To her, that single word had always meant love. Now, it meant betrayal.
    “What about numbers that can’t be taken apart by other numbers?” Theo asked. “Like seven. Or seventeen. A number that can only be divided by itself and by one. The biggest that I can figure out so far is 937. That was last night too. It’s hard work, but it keeps me from feeling sorry for myself.”
    “Those are called prime numbers.”
    “You know this?”
    “I learned it.”
    “So other people
do
think about this stuff! Maybe I’m not so weird. Can you teach me more?”
    “Maybe,” Caitlyn said.
    “It’d be nice if you did. And I’d like stay with you, but I really don’t expect you to help me get Outside.”
    “How did you hurt your arm?” Caitlyn asked, remembering the fresh blood that gleamed at the edges of the wrap around his arm.
    “It feels hot under the bandage,” Theo said. “Not like from the sun. I hope it doesn’t get worse. But even if it gets worse, I won’t regret it. I would rather be dead than live in the factory anymore. Not much difference as they just want you to work to death anyway. And you can’t even think there or talk. But I
have
to think. I
have
to talk. I have to talk about what I think.”
    “I’m beginning to understand that,” Caitlyn said, letting out a small laugh despite herself.
    “If you leave me, just don’t do it when I’m asleep in this tree.” Theo’s voice sounded drowsy. “I don’t know if I can climb down without falling.”
    Caitlyn didn’t answer. She’d have to leave him, sooner than later. But she didn’t want to think about it.
    He yawned. “Oh, and I didn’t explain…it’s where the radio chip was—”
    “Chip?” Caitlyn said. It was hard to follow Theo’s train of thought.
    “You asked me how I hurt my arm. Factory kids have radio chips embedded in our muscles to keep track of us. I had to dig it out with a knife, otherwise I never would have escaped.”
    Caitlyn looked up at Theo as if seeing him for the first time. He’d cut through his own skin and muscle? She didn’t know what to say.
    “You’re a girl, right? You’re too soft and your voice is beautiful. How old are you? Where were you born?”
    Unwanted, haunting words from Papa’s letter came back to